Boost Sales on Shopify
So you’ve taken the leap to move your store online and you have put in the time, curated your wonderful products, launched your site on Shopify. So and now you can sit back and wait for your products to fly off the shelves, right?
Unfortunately, not.
The eCommerce world is getting more and more popular and more and more crowded. You need to get potential customers on your site and you need them to buy your products.
Maybe you are attracting traffic to your site but this is not leading to sales? What’s going wrong?
As the saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.” That’s the challenge in getting those all-important sales.
In this guide, we are going to show you how to bring the horse to water and entice it to drink! We’ve looked at Shopify Analytics and Shopify Content Marketing, now let’s take a deep dive into how to boost sales on Shopify.🐴
Join the Optily newsletter!
Stay up-to-date on platform changes, digital marketing tactics, and industry news. We promise we won’t spam!
8 Top Tips to Boost Sales on Shopify
Today, we’re going to talk through 8 tips gathered from Optily experts that are guaranteed to boost sales on your Shopify store.
# 1 - KISS - Keep it Simple, Stupid!
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. To boost sales on Shopify just keep it simple! Do what you know you’re good at.
Simplicity should be a key goal for your whole site.
- Navigation through the site should be easy and straightforward
- Pricing and Shipping costs and return policy should be clear and easily found
- Your FAQ page should cover all the usual questions that customers ask
- Utilize Live Chat to give quick responses to customers
# 2 - Optimize your Checkout
When there is a customer on your site and they want to buy something, the last thing you want to do is make the checkout process too complicated and have them abandon the cart in frustration.
Optimize your checkout process and again keep this step as simple as possible. Some expert tips to do this are:
- Only collect as much information as necessary
- Utilize Shopify’s functions to allow you to customize some checkout fields such as having the billing address pre-fill from the shipping address
- For repeat customers, you could add express checkout
- While cross-selling and up-selling are always prized, don’t bombard your customer at this point with intrusive ads and offers
# 3 - Write Enticing Product Descriptions
It’s not enough to just show images or give size charts, you must describe your product in such a way that a customer wants to buy it.
Will it make their life easier? Will it make them feel good?
Don’t write an essay but list the key reasons why this product is a good fit for them. Your product description should be detailed and evocative. Make a shortlist of the USP of your products and include this in the descriptions.
# 4 - Amazing Product Images
A high-quality product image is a must in today’s eCommerce world. You need to showcase your products with quality images alongside evocative text.
Your customers can’t touch your product or try it on like they would in a physical store. You need to show them and tell them a good story to convince them that this is the product they want to buy.
Your product images should be top-quality, sharp, and clear and show the product from all angles including highlighting small details.
Include vital product specifications as well as a powerful story about the product.
Expert tip: Consider zoom images, 360 spin images, and video, if appropriate. You don’t need a professional for professional product photos, follow this DIY Guide to Beautiful Product Photography from Shopify.
# 5 - Customer Opt-ins to Nurture Future Sales
You want to get as much value as possible from the traffic that lands on your site.
While you may not always get an immediate sale, getting a potential customer to sign up for a discount/offer gets you their information which can be used for marketing and can lead to future sales. Offering discounts on sign up is a powerful tool for conversion to sales.
There are a few options to do this, such as:
- Pop-ups
- Flyouts
- Chat windows
However, when there is a clear intent to buy, you don’t want anything to annoy the customer. So whatever you do, don’t have any of these pop-ups on the checkout page!
# 6 - Focus on Email Marketing
Email marketing is something we’ve talked about time and time again as one of the best channels to connect with your customers and generate sales.
Here are some email campaigns every Shopify store should have:
Welcome Emails
These tend to have the highest open rates and help to get the customer hooked with a discount.
Referral emails
If you can get your customers to share your store with a friend, give them both a discount.
Cart abandonment Emails
This email is important to remind customers that they forgot some stuff in their cart.
Order confirmation Emails
In these emails, you should try to upsell or ask for a review.
Upsell Email
Encourage your customer to buy more. Use their buying history to advertise more products.
Win-back Emails
Customer hasn’t shopped for a while? Send them a reactivation email with an offer or a curated collection of products they might be interested in.
Survey Email Campaign
Use Incentives; people don’t like surveys unless you throw in a gift card or a nice discount.
# 7 - Have a Clear Call–to-Action (CTA)
A CTA is a link or a button that signals the most-desired action to your site visitors. This action will vary from page to page, and different CTAs will serve different functions throughout the customer journey e.g. Read more, Discover more, Buy Now. You want to make your CTAs irresistible to the customer. Here are some top tips to do this and ultimately boost sales on Shopify.
- Place your CTA above the fold, this is the part of the page that is immediately visible to a site visitor and the part they spend the most time looking at.
- Use simple and proven phrases such as:
- Homepage: Shop now, Shop the collection
- Product page: Buy now, Add to Cart
- Cart: Checkout
- Checkout page: Pay now
When creating CTAs, make sure to use contrasting colors and suitable font and size. It’s easy to miss a CTA on a mobile device, so be sure to make your important CTAs mobile compatible and noticeable.
# 8 - Social Proof
Social proof is an extremely powerful and persuasive tool when it comes to boosting sales on Shopify. The concept refers to the validation of your business by other users and previous customers. This forms a sense of trust for new customers and lets them know previous people bought into your business and enjoyed it.
Here are a few ways you can use social proof in user reviews to improve trust and authenticity in your products:
- Publish user-uploaded product images
- Show the number of products sold
- Display expert reviews for your products’ endorsements
- Mark your best products as “Popular Choice”
Conclusion
I hope you now feel confident in using these expert techniques to boost sales on Shopify! I’ve no doubt that if you put time and effort into implementing these tips you’ll see an increase in sales for your eCommerce store.
To keep the momentum rolling try reading our article “How do I get more Sales on Shopify?” and combine the methods learned in both articles to supercharge your Shopify store in 2022.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Let me know if there are other topics you would be interested to learn about on our social media.
Thanks for reading!
